If It Isn't Love Read online

  If It Isn’t Love

  Dwayne S. Joseph

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  Book Club Discussion Questions

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgments

  God ... as always, thank you for life.

  My family and friends ... Love you all!!

  To Portia ... let’s do it big in ’09!

  To all of the readers and the book clubs ... Thank you for always supporting my efforts! I appreciate it! Here’s a story to quell your appetites until “Betrayal” comes out! As always, continue to hit me up with your feedback!

  To my DEFENDING SUPER BOWL CHAMPS!!! Big Blue all day ... EVERY day!! Let’s keep it going!!

  Much love!

  Dwayne S. Joseph

  www.myspace.com/Dwaynesjoseph

  [email protected]

  And the Pharisees came to Him, and asked Him, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? Tempting him.

  And He answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you?

  And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away.

  And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.

  But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.

  For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife:

  And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.

  What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

  And in the house His disciples asked Him again of the same matter.

  And He saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.

  And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.

  Mark 10: 2–12

  Prologue

  “You have six months to live. Up to a year ... possibly, with medication, but we caught it late, so the more realistic time frame is six months. I’m sorry.”

  Jean Stapleton-Blige sat stoic in Dr. Johnson’s uncomfortable chair on the other side of his desk and stared. Not at him. Not at anything really. She just stared.

  Leukemia.

  Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia to be exact. CLL for short.

  Six months to live.

  Sure, extending her life beyond that was possible, but there’d been no confidence in the doctor’s tone.

  Jean stared at nothing. Dr. Johnson cleared his throat. He’d given news like this many times before, but the delivery was never easy. Life was unfair. Damn unfair.

  He cleared his throat. “There is chemotherapy or other drugs that you can try.”

  Jean averted her gaze from nothing in particular, to Dr. Johnson’s somber, brown eyes. “That won’t cure me, will it?”

  “No.”

  “And the likelihood of living past six months is slim, correct?”

  Dr. Johnson nodded. “Yes.”

  Jean stood up and gathered her coat in her arms. “Then there is no point in trying anything. Thank you, doctor. I’m glad to have met you.”

  Jean extended her hand. Dr. Johnson looked at her and tried to conceal his frown. Sixty-five years old; still a lot of life left to live. Damn unfair, he thought again. He stood up and took Jean’s hand. He wanted to apologize again, but instead said, “Good-bye, Mrs. Stapleton-Blige.”

  Jean nodded and then turned and walked out of his office.

  Minutes later, she sat in her car in the parking lot, again staring at nothingness. Tears should have been flowing from her eyes. Her hands should have been shaking. She should have been cursing God for allowing this to happen to her. But none of those things happened.

  Jean breathed slow breaths.

  Death was inevitable, and at some point it happened to everyone. Some people’s time came before others. Whether she liked it or not, she’d caught the early bus. There was no point in being angry or sad. It was what it was. For better or worse, Jean had lived her life, and now God was telling her that her time was up and He needed her at His side.

  She let out a slow sigh. Six months. Somehow she knew that she’d never make the year time period. She leaned her head back and stared out of her window and looked up toward the clear autumn sky. Her home, she thought, looking past the clouds. In six months.

  She sighed again and thought about her husband, Stewart, and wondered how he would handle the news. As minister of the largest Baptist church in the city, Stewart often gave sermons about death and how it had been something not to grieve over, but to celebrate because it meant going to sit beside the Lord to do work for Him. Jean couldn’t help but wonder if he would see it that way when she broke the news to him.

  Her life with Stewart was envied by many women. Handsome with lazy Marvin Gaye-like eyes, a chiseled jawline, and deep baritone voice, from the time they’d begun dating to now, women longed for his attention. Unfortunately, he longed for theirs as well, and over the years, that longing never wavered. So while Jean played the good wife and smiled on the outside, she cried daily on the inside, because despite Stewart’s infidelity, Jean loved her husband with all her heart and that love kept her locked in a marriage in which she’d never really been respected. She’d always been just “The First Lady of Zion Baptist.” That was her moniker.

  Stewart was the sole breadwinner in their home. His mission of spreading the Lord’s words put them in the six-bedroom house they lived in. His sermons paid the bills, put the expensive clothing in her closet, and allowed her to drive the Mercedes she was sitting in. Stewart had never come out and voiced it, but his actions clearly showed that as far as he was concerned, as long as he provided for his wife and children, he had every right to engage in his extramarital trysts. After all ... his romps with other women had meant nothing. It was just sex. All Jean had to do was keep the house clean, raise the children, and do all of the things that a minister’s wife was supposed to do. And that’s just what Jean did. ’Til death do us part; that was the vow she’d made years ago, and unhappy or not, she would abide by that promise.

  Jean sighed again.

  What would he say when she told him? Would he change his ways? Did it even matter?

  And what of her children? What would they say?

  Her daughters, Monica and Karen, with whom she had very strained relationships, and hadn’t spoken to in months—what would they say? What would their reactions be? And her son, Jeffery—how would he deal with the news? Jean couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken to her youngest. How would he react to the news? Would he still want nothing to do with her, which had been the last words he’d said to her?

  Six months.

  Jean looked at the clouds and watched them amble by within the clear blue. Against her will, tears slowly escaped from the corners of her light brown eyes. She wiped them away, but the flow remained steady. A passerby would mistake them for tears of sadness, but they were hardly th
at at all. Sadness could not bring the flood.

  But regret could, and did.

  Jean Stapleton-Blige started her car while tears ran down her cheeks. Six months. That was the time God had given her to close the wounds of regret for things done and undone, and words said and unsaid. Staring up at the clouds she realized that.

  As she cried, Jean smiled. She was going to die, but before that eternal sleep came, she would repair her relationship with her family. That determination brought her a comfort and peace she hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Leukemia.

  She couldn’t help but wonder ... had this been God’s punishment or gift?

  1

  Monica was running late. Again. She was always doing that. She couldn’t show up anywhere on time. School, weddings, dates, work; Monica was late even by CP (colored people) standards. But she wasn’t taking the blame this time. It was Karen’s fault that she’d slept through her alarm clock and its incessant whining, and woke up with a splitting headache that she prayed the four Advil she’d taken would get rid of. Monica hadn’t meant to stay out so late. But after Karen dropped her unexpected bomb, going home early had become out of the question. Older by two years, her sister was pregnant. Monica was going to be an aunt.

  Never one to overdo alcohol, when Karen delivered the news at the Cheesecake Factory, Monica and their girls Tatiana and Natalia took more than one celebratory toast of champagne. No longer able to drink with the best of them, Karen had water.

  Monica threw clothes around her disheveled bedroom and searched frantically for her car keys. As she did, the festivities from the night before with her sister ran through her mind.

  “I’m pregnant, girl,” Karen had announced with a smile.

  Stunned, Monica said, “Run that by me again.”

  Rochelle, the loudest of the bunch never gave Karen a chance to repeat. “She said she’s pregnant!” she screamed.

  “How many months?” Monica asked.

  “Two months going on three. I had no clue because I only just missed my period.”

  “Oh my God!” Monica screamed, hugging her sister. “When did you find out?”

  “Today.”

  “What did Alex say?”

  “I didn’t tell him yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I want to wait for the right time. You know he has that baby mama drama going on with Mariah. I have to make sure he’ll be okay with this.”

  “Sheeit,” Tatiana interjected. “He better be okay with it. You gon’ be a mommy, girl!”

  The ladies screamed as Monica hugged her sister again. “You sure you’re ready?”

  “Ready? I’m twenty-nine. It’s about time, don’t you think?”

  Monica smiled again and gave her sister another hug, then put her hand on Karen’s belly. “I’m going to be an auntie!”

  The ladies screamed out loud again and lifted their glasses for a toast. They didn’t care as the other diners looked at them with annoyed glares, although Tatiana, the most ghetto-fabulous of them all, took a brief moment to say out loud: “Do you people mind if we celebrate without y’all being all up in our business?”

  It may have been bold and borderline rude, but that was Tatiana, and she got her point across because the staring ceased.

  The recollection of the previous night faded when she finally located her keys beneath a small pile of clean clothes sitting on the floor beside her dressing table. She had a meeting at ten o’clock and she had to brief her team on the plans beforehand. She grabbed her makeup bag as she bolted into the bathroom and hurried to apply her makeup. When she was finished and satisfied with her rapid beautification process, she grabbed her black blazer from her unmade bed and slipped into it. Before rushing out of the room, she checked herself out in the mirror. She had to admit: she had it going on. She was attractive even without the makeup. Her C-cup breasts were perky and her ass was tight. To make the package even sweeter, she was educated, independent, strong, and earned one hell of a salary. No wonder Bryce was hooked.

  Monica blew a kiss to her reflection and took a quick disappointing glance at her room in the mirror. Clothes everywhere, bed unmade, random things scattered on the floor, dressing and night tables. She had to get her room and the rest of her apartment together when she got home. She hurried out of her room, closed the door behind her, and swore to do that, just as she had for the past two months.

  Keys in hand, coat grabbed from the back of her sofa, Monica was about to run out of her apartment when the phone rang. For a moment she thought about letting it go to her answering machine, but then figured it was Bryce calling to wish her good luck, which he usually did before big meetings. She moved to the phone, grabbed the phone from the base, and hit the talk button.

  “Hey sexy!”

  “Excuse me?”

  Monica snapped her head back a bit. “Mama?”

  “Is that how you answer the phone?”

  “I thought you were Bryce, Mama.”

  Her mother hmph’d. “Bryce or not, you should still answer with a hello.”

  Monica rolled her eyes and cursed herself for not looking at the caller ID first. “Mama, I don’t mean to rush you but I was just on my way out the door.”

  “Hold on, girl. Can’t you spare a few minutes for your mama? We haven’t spoken in three months.”

  “I really can’t, Mama. I have a big meeting today.”

  “You puttin’ work before me, girl?”

  Monica sighed. She didn’t need this right now. “Mama ... it’s a big meeting. The biggest of my career.”

  And it was.

  As a creative director for one of the biggest advertising agencies in Washington, DC, the meeting she was going to have, was a very big deal. With top draft picks, a new coach, and a new attitude, the owner of the Washington Redskins wanted a new advertising campaign. With a fresh approach, he and his partners wanted every home game to be sold out, and they wanted to double what they sold in merchandising. If Monica and her team delivered the way everyone had been counting on them to, then chances were very good that the Redskins account would be placed in their laps. It was an extremely lucrative opportunity that the CEOs of her company had been solely focused on, and that excited Monica.

  At five foot five, and 128 pounds, she loved a challenge. She always had. The bigger the obstacle, the more determined she was to conquer it. She’d gotten that trait from watching her mother succumb to the challenge of her father, a man she spoke to once, maybe twice a year. Without ever meaning to, Monica’s mother showed her and Karen what type of shit they weren’t going to take from any man. And it didn’t matter if he worked for God or not. A dog was a damn dog, and Monica never liked pets. The fact that her mother put up with the dog that called himself her father, and everyone’s minister, bothered Monica to no end. She loved her mother, but didn’t respect her, because her mother didn’t demand it for herself. And that created vast distance.

  Monica’s father was the reason she and Karen didn’t go to church. Why should they go and listen to a minister spread the word and talk about how wrong it was to sin, when sinning had been second nature to him? No. Monica would not play the good daughter for the sake of her father’s appearance. So once they were of an age when they were no longer forced to go, Monica and her sister stayed at home while their mother played her part of the fool. Only their brother Jeff went. But he took after his father, and going had never been about the message for him; he went for the women. He never cared about God or what good He could do.

  “It’s a damn shame when your own children have no faith in what you preach to everyone else,” Monica had said to Karen one day.

  “I hear you, girl. Just knowing the bullshit that man practices is what keeps my ass at home. Why should I go to his or any other church for that matter, just to listen to a hypocrite?”

  Hypocrites.

  Her father; who she and her sister called “minister”, for being an ordained gigolo.

  Her mother;
for living a lie, pretending to be happy, when everyone else around them knew that she wasn’t.

  Hypocrisy.

  Monica’s life was filled with it. That’s why she followed in Karen’s footsteps, left North Carolina, and went to school at the University of Maryland. That’s why she never moved back home. She wouldn’t be forced to be a hypocrite for anybody.

  “I really need to go, Mama.”

  Her mother exhaled. “OK, OK. Fine. Obviously work comes before family, so I’ll just do as you wish and make this short and sweet. You’ve probably forgotten, but my birthday is next month.”

  “I know, Mama.”

  “I’m surprised, seeing as how you never remember to call.”

  Monica held her tongue. She didn’t want to get into anything with her mother. She didn’t have the time and more importantly, she didn’t have the desire. The last conversation they’d had, Monica had been bold enough to ask why her mother had stayed with a man who never respected her enough to be faithful. Her mother felt the question had been disrespectful. The why hadn’t been anyone else’s business but hers. After a few minutes of yelling, the conversation ended with both women hanging up the phone, angry about the truth of their words.

  “Anyway,” her mother continued, “I’m plannin’ a birthday dinner for myself, and I want everyone to be there.”

  “Mama, we should be cooking for you. It’s your birthday, after all.”

  “Exactly girl, which is why I want to cook. Now are you comin’ or not?”

  “Of course, Mama.”

  “Make sure you bring Bryce with you.”

  “I will.”

  “How is he doing, anyway?”

  “He’s fine, Mama.”

  “Good. I look forward to seeing him.”